Stranger Than Fiction
by SaturnOolaa
Summary: Despite her strange family and profession, Hinata's life has achieved a bizarre balance. Suddenly, that life is interrupted by two very different people. [Alternate Universe]
1. The Introduction of Our Heroine

Disc: I don't own them.  
  
AN: So. In a misguided attempt to prove that not all AU fanfics have to suck, I have created perhaps the dumbest premise for a Naruto fic that anyone has ever thought of. And I don't care. Honestly, I'm rather fond of it, misguided attempt at originality that it is. Advance warning for those seeking romance: no, this isn't NaruHina or SasuSaku. In fact, you probably won't like the couples involved, but the point of the fic isn't romance anyway. The other advance warning would be that you probably won't see Chapter 2 for a while. Sorry. Hopefully you'll decide to read on anyway!  
  
STRANGER THAN FICTION  
  
CHAPTER 1: THE INTRODUCTION OF OUR HEROINE AND HER COMPANIONS  
  
When people asked Hinata Hyuuga where she worked, she told them that she was a journalist. When they followed this up by asking her which paper she worked for, she deflected the question with a blush or a well-placed stammer. She wasn't ashamed of her job. On the contrary, she liked it very much.  
  
People tended to wonder about you, though, when they knew that you worked for the National Observer. Hinata didn't want to be wondered about.  
  
Her life story wasn't even weird enough to land her in the tabloid that she worked for. Her father and her uncle had been the lead singers of a relatively famous Eighties hair band which only disbanded after Uncle Hizashi had overdosed on cocaine and died. Since Hinata was average looking, couldn't sing, and had no stage presence, it wasn't long before her father's eyes looked away from her and towards her little sister Hanabi and her cousin Neji.   
  
Of course she was a little jealous. Who wouldn't be? Still, being overlooked had its advantages. She had moved to a city in Alberta with a distant relative's family, attended a local high school, graduated with honours but no scholarship in sight, and had been searching for a job when she discovered that the Observer had a branch headquarters in Leafhyde. She had applied mainly out of a desire to be seen as more than "the weird quiet girl." Now, at least, she was a weird quiet girl with her own cubicle.  
  
On the other hand, it was a pretty small cubicle, and the only working computer in the building was currently in the next one over.  
  
"Um," she managed, clearing her throat a little bit, "S-Shino? Are you... are you finished with that photo yet?"  
  
The only answer she received was a loud but undefined grunt. Brushing aside a ream of paper, Hinata hopped carefully into the hall and down several acres of carpet to where her co-workers were standing around an outdated Mac.  
  
"It's not bad," said Kiba thoughtfully, pulling his hood up over his face. One of the best parts of working for the Observer was the lack of anything resembling a dress code. Although most of the employees dressed for business anyway - Hinata wore a starched grey coat and skirt - the advice columnist always looked like he'd just come in from a track meet. "A little more hair on the neck, maybe."  
  
Shino nodded and made the appropriate adjustments to the picture on the screen. He pulled his sunglasses down slightly, nodded, and pushed them back up again before turning to Hinata. "What do you think?"  
  
"It... looks good to me..." replied Hinata with a shy smile. The monitor displayed the head of a local politician, melted into the head of a young girl and expertly photoshopped onto the body of a monkey. It was perfect for the ape girl story she had finished yesterday. "I don't suppose the boss... is still here?"  
  
Kiba snorted. "He left hours ago. Said he needed to go get a bikini wax. Are you leaving for lunch?" She nodded, and he gave her a fanged grin. "Go ahead and take the rest of the day off, too, huh? If he can do it, you can too."  
  
"...Alright," responded Hinata, glad she didn't have anything more to do at the office. "I'll... I'll see you both tomorrow?"  
  
On the way out, she touched Kiba's mind briefly. He was wondering what his dog was doing at the moment. He was also wondering whether he should ask her out tomorrow, or if he'd better put it off a few more weeks just to be on the safe side. He wanted to wait until the best possible time, but maybe she was waiting for him to...  
  
The sound of his thoughts faded as she walked out of the building and down the city sidewalk.  
  
Hinata also came from a family of mind readers.   
  
She doubted that even that would get her into the National Observer.  
  
***  
  
"...I mean, I've told him a *million* times," Sakura said, in the snobby, gossipy tone she usually affected around Ino. "I even bought him tweezers for Christmas. How subtle is that? *Honestly,* I'm not sure why I keep him around in the first place."  
  
Sakura and Ino were acquaintances from high school who worked just down the street at The Gap. They both had goals in the fashion industry- but whereas Ino wanted to be a model, Sakura was planning on designing her own clothing label. For the most part, the two girls acted as if they hated each other, but they still ate lunch together every day at Moxie's. Hinata had somehow ended up eating with them.   
  
She took a sip of tea and patted her lips with the paper napkin. It left a little ring of pink on one corner, which made her smile. "Aren't you being a little bit mean to Lee?" she asked hesitantly, and quickly put her head back down when the other two looked at her. "Sorry."  
  
"Oh, stop *apologizing,*" Ino responded breezily, waving her fork around in the air before spearing another lettuce leaf. "You're always doing that." She turned back to Sakura. "Why don't you just dump him? You could do better."  
  
Sakura shrugged her shoulders and tossed back her bubblegum-pink dyed hair. "Oh, I don't know," she replied vaguely.  
  
In fact, Hinata knew exactly why- despite everything, Sakura had found herself falling out of love with her crush since Grade 6 and into love with her very fish-eyed boyfriend. She was mildly repulsed by the fact. Hinata sympathized with her a little. After having spent her entire life focused on social status and appearance, it must be somewhat mortifying for her to be dating a Bruce Lee fanatic who worked in a martial arts kwoon next to a Subway resturaunt.  
  
For that matter, Hinata also knew that Ino had secretly been in love with Sakura for years and had never forgiven her when she chose her crush over their friendship. There were some good points to being a psychic. You never had to pay attention to gossip when you knew what other people really *were* thinking and feeling.  
  
"...He's a nice guy, anyway. He's got a car. That's more than you can say for *some* people's boyfriends." Sakura gave Ino a fake smile. "Speaking of boyfriends, how's Shikamaru?"  
  
Ino rolled her eyes. "Arg. Don't even talk about it. He ditched me last night to go hang out with his loser friends. I'm ending it today. Things were better between us when we were just us, y'know?" Shikamaru and Ino had known each other forever, but everyone who knew them had known that their hooking up last summer had been a bad idea. The only reason that they had lasted so long was because Shikamaru was too lazy to move out...  
  
Letting the familiar venom-laden banter drift over her head, Hinata continued to chew on her usual BLT. She remembered sitting alone in the cafeteria in high school while the other girls sat and talked like this. It was nice to be part of a group, even if that group was less than ideal.  
  
"Hinata?"  
  
Hinata blinked and looked up. Sakura and Ino were both staring at her, as if waiting for a reply. "Hinata, are you still with us?"  
  
Blinking so hard that she almost dislodged her contacts, Hinata blushed and hid her mouth behind her sandwich. There was nothing she hated more than getting lost in thought and missing the conversation. "Sorry?" she squeaked in surprise. "You were saying...?"  
  
Ino gave her a playful grin. "Just wondering if you were gonna go see the concert in Calgary next week. I ordered my ticket two months ago, so I'm all set." She sighed happily and took a sip of Diet Coke.  
  
"Yeah?" asked Sakura with mock politeness. "Lee and I got tickets three months ago for *free.* I couldn't believe it. My boyfriend is friends with Neji Hyuuga!" She turned to Hinata once again. "So, are you going?"  
  
Hinata shook her head. "Neji Hyuuga... doesn't really interest me much," she responded softly.  
  
Shaking her head, Sakura polished off the last of her clam chowder. "I *love* him," she said. "'Somebody Else's Girl' is my favorite song ever. I seriously can't believe I'm going to see him..."  
  
"Speaking of going to see people," Ino interrupted, a jealous little smirk on her face, "guess what? Sasuke's working a shift this afternoon! I'm going to get someone else to take my shift so I can go see him... what about you?"  
  
Sakura's eyes opened wide. "Oh, I'm going too!" she said, with excitement that Hinata could sense was partially fake. "I can't wait! He's so hot- I get *chills* just looking at him." She looked over to Hinata. "You should come too!"  
  
Nearly every girl at Sarutobi High had been madly in love with Sasuke Uchiha since they were in preschool. He didn't play any sports or join any clubs. Despite his good grades, he didn't seem interested in school at all. His cold attitude and his good looks were enough to keep girls drooling after him even after graduation.  
  
What most people didn't know was that Sasuke's older brother had killed his parents slowly and methodically in front of him before being shipped off to a mental hospital in Manitoba. Ever since then, Sasuke's one goal in life had been to kill Itachi. It made him who he was. The few times Hinata had looked into his heart, the pulsing hatred she had found there had made her sick for days afterwards.  
  
Now he worked at the Wax Museum. It suited him. He was no more alive than the figures he cared for.  
  
"No," she said, "I think I'll stay downtown for a while."  
  
***  
  
Downtown Leafhyde was a gracious exaggeration. Hinata could name and give directions to every building over eight stories, and she barely even glanced at them. The urban area sprawled like a cancer in the middle of the city, dying into housing after a few blocks each way.  
  
Having a job downtown made Hinata very happy. It meant, among other things, that every day she had a chance to go to her favorite place in the world.  
  
She walked lightly down the street, nearly floating on her own little cloud, counting shops as she went by. She almost didn't want to get to the store. If he wasn't there, the disappointment would stay with her for the rest of the day. On the other hand, if he was...  
  
Turning the corner, she took a deep breath and opened the door of Iruka Umino's Exotic Pets and Video Rental.  
  
"Hello!" called the familiar loud voice from behind the counter. "Welcome to... oh, hey, Hinata! What's up?"  
  
Hinata turned beet red and began pushing her fingertips together. She did it whenever she was nervous. "Naruto..."  
  
Naruto Uzumaki, like Hinata, had a famous father. Unfortunately, he wasn't a former rock star- he was the infamous "Nine Tails" serial killer, a schizophrenic who believed he was the reincarnation of a Japanese fox demon. After a spree of gristly murders, he had killed himself and his wife when Naruto was still small.   
  
Nobody wanted to take care of a schizophrenic little boy who might turn out to become like his father. Naruto, living alone on the grace of the local authorities, had managed to acquire medication for himself and become completely self-sufficient. More than that, despite the fact that most of Leafhyde despised and feared him, he was a cheerful and fairly well adjusted boy who always had a smile on his face. Even in High School, he had managed to win some friends simply by the virtue of his unfailing good attitude and talent for pranks.  
  
To Hinata, who had spent her time in High School skulking around in corners trying not to be noticed, he was the bravest, most wonderful person in the world, and just seeing him smile made her day.  
  
"Are you looking for a movie?" he asked, hopping over the counter to meet her. "Or maybe a pet?" His grin widened. "Or maybe you just came to see my handsome face?"  
  
Hinata's blush deepened. Despite her best efforts, she still had trouble breathing whenever Naruto came near her. It was like being in the presence of a superhero. "Um," she managed, still pushing her fingers together, "I'm... um..."  
  
Naruto laughed and shook his head. "I'm just kidding. Hey, wanna see something really cool? We got an alligator!" He pointed to one of the large tanks lining the walls. Inside, a small alligator dozed in the shallow water. "Cute, huh? I'm calling her Claudia."  
  
"It's... it's a girl, then?" asked Hinata tentatively, kneeling down on the floor so she could see better. She tapped lightly on the glass, and the animal's visible eye swiveled towards her for a moment before unfocusing again.  
  
Naruto nodded, reaching up to scratch his head. His hair was short and spiky, and reminded Hinata of nothing so much as stiff toothbrush bristles. "Yeah. The guys get pretty big, so... Uh, you're probably here for a movie, right?" He gestured to the back of the store. "We've got some new releases this week!"  
  
Giving him a shy nod, Hinata approached the back wall and began leafing through the movies on display. Although she did really only come to the store to see Naruto, she felt it was more polite if she at least rented something as well. She didn't go to the movies often - large crowds of people unnerved her a little bit - but she did like watching movies at home.  
  
After a few minutes of fruitless searching, she closed her eyes and ran her finger along the shelf. When she opened them, her hand pointed to the BBC Edition of Wuthering Heights. Frowning, she looked around again for a few minutes before deciding on Maid in Manhattan.  
  
"I'll... um, take this, please," she said hesitantly, walking forward to the front of the store and shoving the video case onto the counter. She was sure her face was redder than ever. Her movie choices were always embarrassing for her. "Sorry."  
  
Naruto shook his head and typed the video into the cash register. "Not a problem..." he responded absentmindedly. "...Uh, Hinata? Have you read the paper today?"  
  
"Um, I don't get the paper," replied Hinata, hunching her shoulders down further and counting exact change for the rental out of one slightly sweaty palm. "...Why...?"  
  
He shook his head. "Just, uh, there was this one article... You live near Henderson Park, right? The paper said that someone was murdered there last week." His eyes turned serious. "It's not a great area. Be careful, okay?"  
  
Hinata, although shocked that someone could die in such a small city, didn't pay much attention to the warning. Her mind glossed over it and centered in on the fact that he had asked her to be careful. *He* was concerned about *her.* "I will," she whispered, giving him a nervous little smile with all the courage she had.  
  
"Good." Naruto grinned back. "Enjoy the movie, huh? Seeya."  
  
***  
  
Almost half-asleep already, Hinata sighed contentedly and pressed rewind on the remote control. The movie had been exactly the sort of thing she liked sometimes. It was sweet, light-hearted, predictable, and didn't require any conscious thought. Hinata usually only watched movies when she knew how they ended. Some movies, however, didn't even require that guarantee.  
  
The afternoon had been as predictable as the movie. After a brief walk around town, still invigorated from seeing Naruto, she had taken the bus back to her apartment and spent the time until dinner cleaning it thoroughly. The apartment was small and easy to wash. Hinata never made much of a mess in her own place. Nevertheless, having things in perfect order was always satisfying.  
  
Dinner had been spaghetti, which was almost the limit of her skills in the kitchen. Aunt Kurenai had called while she was doing the dishes and invited her to dinner tomorrow. She had argued- her caretaker must be busy with the kids, she and Uncle Asuma both worked all day, Hinata really could take care of herself- but backed down when it became clear Kurenai was serious. She had been secretly thankful. It would be good to see her family again.  
  
When the tape finished rewinding, she got up off the couch and took it out of the VCR. "Goodnight," she murmured, tucking it into its case. Then, feeling slightly stupid for talking to inanimate objects, she turned off the living room light and headed into the bathroom.  
  
Her pajamas lay neatly folded on top of the laundry basket. They were white, printed with small blue flowers, and extremely warm. She changed in a space of seconds. Then, carefully keeping her eyes on the mirror, she took out her grey colour contacts to reveal white irises.  
  
Giving her reflection a tentative smile, she padded into her bedroom and closed the door behind her.  
  
Hinata didn't often let people see where she slept. This was her own private life.  
  
The room was plastered with pictures of Neji Hyuuga. His face stared down at her from everywhere, in posters and advertisements and magazine cutouts. Behind the brilliant blue of his own contacts, his eyes were as white as hers. In every picture he looked different- smiling, laughing, looking dangerous, depressed, shirtless, fully clothed, with and without proper lighting and makeup.  
  
Turning off the light- she could see without it, anyway- Hinata shuffled towards her CD player and turned it to Track Eight. The darkness was filled with Neji's voice. The song was trite and cliched and far too sappy.  
  
Neji on CD and Neji in real life were very different people.  
  
Hinata hopped into bed, closed her eyes, and absorbed the music.  
  
***  
  
CHAPTER 1: END 


	2. The Plot Begins to Thicken Slightly

Disc: I don't own them.  
AN: Hi! Sorry for the long, long, long wait- I'd blame it on my beta, but that would be mean (even though it is his fault.) I hope this chaper is worth the anticipation. Actually, since this was finished such a long time ago, I'm probably going to take a long time to get back into the swing of things. As such, I can assure you that the wait for Chapter 3 may prove to be even longer. In the meantime, have fun reading about the adventures of the AU Naruto cast! Who will show up next? How exciting!  
  
STRANGER THAN FICTION CHAPTER 2: THE PLOT BEGINS TO THICKEN SLIGHTLY  
  
As Hinata fumbled with the buttons, another person approached from the hallway. Her boss entered the elevator just as the doors glided shut. He gave her a smile and a wave. "Hinata! Hey."  
  
"Kakashi..." she replied quietly, making a face and jumping slightly as the elevator started to move upwards. "Wasn't there... supposed to be a management meeting this morning? Aren't you sort of late for that?"  
  
He looked at his watch, his one visible eye crinkling into a smile. "I was helping a Grade 6 class write the next big Broadway musical."  
  
The senior manager of the National Observer, Hatake Kakashi, tended to give people a rather strange impression. This was due to a number of factors. His appearance, for one - he had stark white hair, an eyepatch, and wore bulky woolen scarvesthat covered the lower half of his face even in the middle of summer. His personality was another. Kakashi seemed to lack the ability to answer a question directly, speaktruthfully about himself, or joke without sounding completely honest.  
  
It had come as a surprise to Hinata when she had discovered that she liked him quite a bit. It had come as an even bigger surprise when she discovered that he was an Empath and could read other people's emotions. Since then, due to a newfound amount of respect for someone with a similar power to hers, she had avoided reading his mind.  
  
"That sounds very interesting," she managed, before the elevator doors glided open and he strode out into the office. She followed after him. "Um, I finished the ape girl story, so do you have anything else I should work on?"  
  
Kakashi turned around to look her in the eye. "Actually," he said pleasantly, "I have a new assignment for you. I'd like you to write a story about the creature killing animals in Henderson Park."  
  
"...Hm?" Hinata thought back to yesterday. Naruto had mentioned something like that, hadn't he? About a murder incident?  
  
"Is this a true story?" she asked, temporarily forgetting the most important rule of working for the tabloids.  
  
In response, Kakashi shook his head and made it clear that he was frowning behind his scarf. "All our stories are true, Hinata."  
  
Despite the fact that she knew very well it was a lie, and had even made up some of the stories herself, he had such a brilliant poker face that she would have believed him in a second. "I'm sorry," she said, blushing to the roots of her hair. "I'll get right on that..."  
  
Kakashi's frown turned at once upside down. "Good."  
  
Hinata walked over to her cubicle, noting the brand new stack of paper sitting on her desk. She would never figure out when Kakashi was actually in the office to distribute these things. He probably spent most of his time figuring out creative new reasons for coming in late and leaving early.  
  
A quick look over the research material revealed nothing much that she didn't know already. Within the past few weeks, several house pets and one person had been killed late at night around the Henderson area. The bodies seemed to have been torn apart and sprinkled with sand from the playground. There were no witnesses, and no other clues. The police investigation had made no headway at all.  
  
This information left her with a lot of leeway for a story. Although she knew some people would find it a little morbid to be writing a fictitious article about a murderer, Hinata wasn't all that bothered by it. She hoped that the dead person wouldn't mind, but a job was a job, and she didn't think anyone involved with the case would believe the article even if they read it.  
  
She took out a piece of paper and started scribbling aimlessly. What kind of story should she write? Since the sandbox had been involved, maybe it was a child... but she had just used that angle on the ape girl story. Maybe the sand was actually from the desert, and a mummy had escaped from a museum somewhere to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting public...  
  
"Do you want some coffee?" asked Kiba from the doorway of her cubicle, so quickly that she barely caught the words. His hands were clenched by his sides.  
  
Hinata shook her head with a cheerful smile, avoiding his eyes. She was fairly sure she knew what this was about. "I'm fine..." she said. "I, um, had some with breakfast this morning. But thank you anyway..."  
  
"No," said Kiba, shuffling his sneakers against the carpeted floor. "Not right now. I mean, would you like to go and have coffee with me sometime today?" He quickly backpedaled. "Not as a date, if you don't want, just... you know."  
  
It wasn't that she didn't want to- she actually took a moment to consider it, as she had been for a while. Kiba was a great guy. He loved his dog, and his friends, and was almost like Naruto in some ways. But even though she lacked the resolve to shoot him down once and for all, it would still feel too much like she was leading him on if they went anywhere together. "I'm... a little bit busy today," she responded, pressing her fingers together nervously. "Um, but maybe some other time?"  
  
Kiba nodded. Although he looked fine, the disappointment in his mind was so loud that she could hear it without even trying. "That's okay," he said, "if you're busy, we can just go some other time. Yeah." He grinned weakly, but Hinata had a feeling he wouldn't ask again anytime soon.  
  
She felt sorry for disappointing him. It would be nice if they could go out together. She had never had a real boyfriend - there had been a brief incident in Eighth Grade where a boy had a crush on her for a few weeks, before he realized that her hair was naturally black and that she didn't write angsty poetry in her spare time. She had lost her virginity at the Prom to a guy who she had liked fairly well but had slept with mainly because she had felt that otherwise she would die a virgin. It had been nice, but not really nice. Neither situation counted as being in a relationship.  
  
The future of her romantic life seemed just as boring. Although in her private heart she dreamed of someday telling Naruto how she felt about him, she knew that it was more likely she would forget all about him than that she would ever get a chance to ask him out.  
  
Hinata sighed in a not-particularly-depressed way and focused on her story.  
  
Her day had consisted of similar little events. After going out to lunch and hearing Sakura and Ino discuss how hot Sasuke had looked yesterday with fake enthusiasm, she had returned to work and decided that the mummy approach was probably the best. Before she could ask Shino to let her use the computer to type out her draft, she had realized that had stayed a little bit late and that she had probably missed Naruto's shift at the pet store.  
  
Since she wasn't going to see him there, she had decided to forget about it and go grocery shopping instead. Although she didn't eat very much, she also didn't make grocery lists until the only thing left in the house was the salt. This made buying food a very general experience that usually took at least an hour. She had taken a bus to the store and grabbed a cart.  
  
Hinata's taste in food was simple. If it didn't require too much effort to make, and didn't burn the roof off her mouth with hot peppers, she liked it. Since she wasn't a cook by any stretch of the imagination, most of the food currently in her shopping cart was frozen pizza and TV dinners.  
  
Turning into the cereal aisle, humming tunelessly to herself, she reached for a box of Rice Krispies and jumped back in surprise when her hand brushed across someone else's. "Sorry!" she said quickly, blushing bright red, before turning to discover the identity of the person she had just touched. "...Naruto?"  
  
"Hinata!" Naruto gave her a friendly grin, shoving a box of Count Chocula into his shopping cart. "What are you doing here? ...Well, actually, you're shopping, aren't you?" His grin turned slightly sheepish. "Dumb question. But I never thought I'd run into you here!"  
  
Hinata took the Rice Krispies off the shelf and held them to her chest like a shield. "Small w-world, isn't it," she managed to squeak.  
  
"Yeah, no kidding." He pushed his cart a little to the side so that people could still get by while they were talking. "So, what did you think of the movie? I'm... not really into the whole chick flick thing, but I guess you like them, right? How was it?"  
  
"Predictable," Hinata replied with a little smile. "But I liked it." She wondered what kind of movies Naruto watched. Probably action and comedy. She couldn't actually check- the medication he took meant that anything other than the thoughts on the surface of his mind were difficult to read at best, and making the effort always felt too intrusive. Despite her curiousity, she would never dream of probing his feelings for her. She would only be disappointed. "It had a happy ending."  
  
Naruto nodded. "That's great! So, um..." Whatever he was about to say next trailed off into nothing, as his eyes shifted from her to behind her at the front of the aisle. The look in his eyes turned stormy. "Oh, look, it's Sasuke."  
  
Hinata turned around. Sasuke Uchiha stood there with a shopping cart in front of him and an unimpressed expression on his face. "Hey," he said, somewhat stiffly, walking down the aisle.  
  
It took everything Hinata had not to giggle at the idea of Sasuke Uchiha doing something as normal as shopping for groceries. Out of respect to Naruto, she smothered the laughter and gave a small distant wave. "Good afternoon."  
  
At that point, she realized that neither Naruto nor Sasuke were paying any attention to her anymore. All their attention was focused on each other. The animosity rolled out from their minds in waves. "Um? E-excuse me?" she said, hoping to break the mood before it gave her a headache. Her words had no effect.  
  
It was a matter of course that Sasuke and Naruto would have become rivals. They were complete opposites- whereas Sasuke earned respect and admiration without even trying, Naruto could never become popular no matter how hard he tried. The fact that Naruto had harbored a completely unsecret crush on Sakura had only intensified his jealously. Although Sasuke usually pretended to ignore him, it was obvious to anyone who could read minds that he was mad at Naruto too.  
  
She was about to actually put herself between them to end the unspoken conflict when it was interrupted by another source entirely. "A traffic jam!" exclaimed another somewhat familiar voice. "What's going on - Naruto? Sasuke? Miss Hinata?"  
  
Naruto broke out of his enraged Sasuke-induced trance and turned to the newcomer. He split into a grin. "Hey, it's Lee!"  
  
Rock Lee grinned back, artificial grocery store lights glinting off his teeth. With his thick black eyebrows and round fishy eyes, he cut a bizarrely impressive figure. "Good to see you!"  
  
Despite the fact that Rock Lee had been the one who ultimately got to go out with Sakura, Naruto liked him. Hinata did as well. He was difficult not to like. Lee, having no natural talents whatsoever, had ended up working twice as hard as everyone else to be half as good. But there was no denying that he was good when he worked for it. He had an unquenchable love of life that he threw into everything he did. Hinata sometimes thought that if she had met him before Naruto, she would have developed a crush on him instead.  
  
"W-wow," she stuttered, grateful for the interruption. "It... really is a small world. Um, good afternoon, Lee..."  
  
Sasuke took one look at Lee and wheeled his shopping cart around. "We probably shouldn't block the aisle." It was probably the most he'd said all day. "I'll see you all later."  
  
Lee, who knew that Sakura had liked Sasuke but didn't resent him as much as Naruto did, nodded. "He's right! Let's not cause inconvenience to the other shoppers!" He grabbed a box of Wheaties and dropped them into his cart. "Miss Hinata, do you need a ride somewhere when we finish shopping?"  
  
"Uh, a ride would be nice. I'll, um, need to stop off at home to drop off my groceries, but, um, would you m-mind dropping me off at... um... the corner of Shadow Clone and Richardson?" Hinata realized that she was still holding her box of cereal and placed it next to the milk in her cart.  
  
"Hinata's here!" screamed Konohamaru as she walked up the porch steps to Aunt Kurenai's house. She barely had time to reach for the doorknob before the door was flung open and several elementary school aged children practically threw themselves at her. "Yo! What's up? You're late! Dinner's ready!"  
  
With a smile, Hinata stepped through the small mob and removed her heeled shoes. She made sure not to push any of the kids aside as she padded through the hallway into the kitchen. "Hello, Konohamaru. Hello, Moegi. Hello, Udon. I'm sorry I'm late..."  
  
Konohamaru was the ringleader of the group of foster children Kurenai and her husband Asuma took care of. He had arrived a few years before Hinata had left, but it was hard to imagine the house ever having been without him. Konohamaru, although something of a brat, was easily amused and spent his time trying to outdo the various stories of Naruto she had brought home from school. Moegi and Udon had quickly fallen into pace with him. Hinata felt closer to them- and to their parents- than she ever had to the Hyuuga family.  
  
"Hinata!" Kurenai exclaimed cheerfully as she opened the door of the microwave. "We've been waiting! I called, but you weren't home, so I just got KFC. I hope you still like it." Unloading several cardboard boxes of chicken, she wiped her hands off on her jeans and gave her a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek.  
  
"...I like KFC fine..." responded Hinata, tentatively returning the hug. "Um, I'm sorry I didn't get the call, I was out shopping for groceries... thank you very much for waiting. I guess everyone is hungry."  
  
Kurenai snorted. "They can wait. Asuma and the kids were rooting around the kitchen a few minutes ago for snacks, so I think they're still okay, and Shikamaru hasn't complained yet- oh, Shikamaru's here! Is that a problem?"  
  
"O-of course not," stammered Hinata, shaking her head vigorously. Shikamaru was Asuma's nephew, and he had ended up coming over for dinner a lot while she still lived with them. Now he worked at Tim Horton's and lived at either Ino's or Chouji's. He mainly ignored her, but he was a nice boy despite his utter lack of motivation in life. "He still comes over, then...?"  
  
Kurenai began loading the chicken onto plastic plates, retrieving a bowl of cole slaw from the fridge. "Oh, absolutely. He plays chess with Asuma all the time now. Would you mind going to the living room and calling them for dinner?"  
  
The TV next to the door was playing sports on mute. Shikamaru and Uncle Asuma sat hunched over the chessboard like old men... hunched over a chessboard. They were so deep in concentration that they barely noticed Hinata entering the room.  
  
She flicked the television off, and Shikamaru turned to her with a glare. "Hey. We were watching that."  
  
"...It's dinner time," she replied with a shy shrug of her shoulders. His tone of voice didn't bother her- Shikamaru always sounded like that, angry or not. She was used to it by now. "Um, who's winning the game?"  
  
Asuma got up off the couch and stretched his arms out wide. "He is." Enfolding Hinata in an awkward bear hug, he turned to Shikamaru and sighed. "Do you really want to play the rest out? You've obviously got me anyway."  
  
"In five moves, if I'm lucky," the young man replied as his eyes scanned the chessboard. Few people noticed Shikamaru's intellect, since he didn't use it for anything other than games and avoiding work. "Sure, let's have dinner... why did you order out, anyway? Isn't the point of inviting people over for dinner that you're going to cook it yourself?"  
  
They reached the table and sat down- Hinata with her napkin smoothed down on her lap, Konohamaru and his gang piling into chairs. Asuma looked back at Shikamaru and shrugged. "If you want our cooking, you're welcome to it. I won't touch anything she makes with a ten foot pole."  
  
"Thank you, dear," Kurenai replied with a dangerous smile. "I guess the strychnine in your coleslaw was a good idea after all."  
  
After several seconds, Hinata let out a muffled laugh. "... pass the forks, please?" It was good to be back here. She always felt more comfortable when she was at home.  
  
When dinner was finished and the few reusable dishes had been cleared from the table, Kurenai offered to drive her home. She usually would have walked- it was still light out, and her apartment was close - but she thankfully accepted. Shadow Clone intersected with Henderson somewhere down the road, and it was best to be cautious.  
  
This caution was the reason that her first actual mistake had been ignoring the fine dusting of sand on the carpet beside her door.  
  
Hinata knew there was someone else in the apartment the minute she stepped inside. Her first impulse was to run. She quickly discarded that idea. She didn't know anyone else in her apartment complex, which left her with few places to run to, and in the shoes she was wearing the intruder would likely catch up to her anyway.  
  
They were in the living room. Fortunately, this meant that they couldn't see her walking very slowly into the kitchen. She slid a carving knife out of its block on her counter. It probably wouldn't do her much good if they had a gun, but it would make her feel a little more confident.  
  
She took a deep breath and strode into the darkened living room.  
  
The figure she saw sitting on the couch was a little younger than her. He had greasy red hair and pale skin, covered in sand and mud. His clothes were dirty and torn. He looked like a street kid who hadn't slept in years.  
  
He turned to face her and opened his pupilless eyes. They were bright green, and seemed to look through her to the wall.  
  
Around his body, in the air, sand was rising in swirling tendrils.  
  
"Hello," she said quietly, hoping she wouldn't startle him into any sudden moves. Terror was rising in the pit of her stomach like an ulcer. Mummies were nothing compared to this. At least they weren't real. "Please don't kill me."  
  
The boy stood up from the couch. "Why not?" he asked. His voice was cracked and oddly toneless- it suited him, she thought blankly. She was too scared to even brush over his mind. "I want to kill you."  
  
He took a step forward. Hinata took a step back and sideways. The sand pooled at his feet crept towards her.  
  
It was at that point that she tripped over the movie case for Maid in Manhattan.  
  
"Is that a movie?" asked the boy. He pointed to the video, which had scattered to the far side of the room. The sand pointed with him.  
  
Hinata nodded.  
  
"Put it in," he said, blank green eyes turning to the TV. "I want to see it."  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	3. Containing Several Drastic Plot Twists

Disc: Not mine!  
AN: Wow. It's been a very, very long time since I wrote this chapter. I could blame my beta, but the blame game never gets anything done. Expect the next chapters to come out a little faster, but not by much, seeing as I now need to get myself back into the flow of this story. Anyway. I hope this proves worth the wait, as it ends a cliffhanger and adds some exciting (cough cough) elements to the story. Enjoy!

STRANGER THAN FICTION CHAPTER 3: CONTAINING SEVERAL DRASTIC TWISTS OF PLOT

Hinata didn't dream very often. When she did, her dreams were pleasant and fairly boring- for instance, sometimes she dreamed about walking to the office and discovering that someone had thrown a St. Patrick's Day party despite it not being St. Patrick's Day. They were never scary.

Unfortunately, that meant that when she woke up the next morning, she couldn't convince herself that it had all been a nightmare.

Neji's fake blue eyes twinkled on her ceiling. "Good morning," she mouthed, with a rather dry smile.

Her skin felt crusty with sweat. Hopping out of bed, placing the kitchen knife she had held all night on her bedside table, she decided that the world would look much brighter once she had taken a long shower.

She paused in front of the bathroom to pull off her shirt and was hit with the delayed realization that she had slept in her clothes. At least they hadn't wrinkled. Her makeup had probably smudged all over her sheets, and her colour contacts were somewhere between the living room and her bedroom, but these weren't pressing concerns at the moment.

Brushing aside her fish-print shower curtain, she turned on the taps and held out her hand waiting for the water to cool. Then she stepped in.

When the strange boy had told her to show him Maid in Manhattan, she had automatically reached for the correct VCR buttons. Some things were just common sense. Complying with the requests of an apparent murderer sitting in your living room was one of those things.

"Um. Should I skip the commercials?"

The boy shook his head. His eerie green eyes were glued to the TV as clips from another romantic comedy flickered across it. In the light of the screen, Hinata could see every crease and hollow on his face. She slowly crossed her legs and turned her attention to the opening credits.

They got halfway through the movie.

Hinata was terrified at first. She spent the first ten minutes planning to either escape or somehow gain the upper hand, and the second ten minutes thinking of every little thing that could go wrong with her plans.

Eventually, she decided that worrying wouldn't get her anywhere. Since the intruder seemed focused enough on the movie to not pay any attention to her, she was best off waiting until his attention had shifted from her and then calling the police.

Just as Jennifer Lopez ran away from the dance, and Hinata was thinking that it was now or never, the movie got the gray fuzzies and stopped. The screen turned blue.

The boy turned to her with detached anger on his face. "I want to see the rest."

"The tape must be broken," she responded, pulling it out and taking a look. Something must have stopped working when she tripped over it. "I, um... sorry." And why was she apologizing to someone who had broken into her home and wanted to kill her?

"I want to know how it ends." A tendril of sand fanned out off the couch and towards her.

"Come back tomorrow night," said Hinata quickly, without even thinking about it, a lump at the back of her throat. "I'll rent another copy and you can see the rest."

The sand fell to the floor. Her intruder regarded her again, with more curiosity than anger this time.

"What?"

"I mean it."

Without saying another word, the boy stood up and walked unsteadily out of her living room. His sand followed behind him like a train.

The ring of the telephone jostled Hinata out of her remembrance of last night. Quickly rinsing shampoo out of her hair, she turned the water off and stepped out of the shower. There was a towel draped over the sink waiting for her. She rubbed it over her hair quickly, draped it around her shoulders, and hurried out to get the call.

"Hello!" the answering machine said brightly. "You've reached the home of Hinata Yuuhi. I'm afraid I can't take your call right now, but if you'll leave your name and phone number after the beep, I'll get back to you when I can. Thanks!"

There was a beep. "Hello," said a certain very familiar voice. "This is-"

Hinata grabbed the phone. "Neji?" she asked with surprise. He never called her.

"Hinata," replied Neji Hyuuga, pop star and idol of teenage girls across the continent. He sounded almost annoyed that she was there after all. Hinata could picture the stern downward curve of his mouth as he spoke. "What are you doing this morning?"

Suddenly shy even though he couldn't see her - or maybe he could, she wasn't quite sure how much psychic power he really had - she cradled the phone on her shoulder and wrapped the towel around her body. "Nothing. ...Where are you calling from?"

"My hotel room." That made more sense. If he was in town, he had no excuse not to call. "I was in the area for the concert. I'll meet you for breakfast, if you're not doing anything else."

What else would she be doing on Saturday morning? She wasn't a celebrity, or even a socialite. Her weekends were the most boring thing imaginable. "No, um, breakfast sounds good... there's a nice place down the road from my house, if you'd like."

"I'll meet you at your house and we'll walk from there." He assumed she wouldn't object. Which was just as well, because she didn't.

"How's the family...?"

"I'll tell you in person. Bye."

"Bye," she replied, just as he hung up. Her cousin had never been one for long phone conversations. Or long conversations at all. She felt almost grateful not to have seen him in person for so long, because the catching up meant that at least they would have something to talk about.

Neji Hyuuga was a complicated person, and Hinata had long ago given up trying to understand him. It had been obvious since she was very young that her father considered him his musical heir. Even though Neji's hair was rather small, and he couldn't play electric guitar, he had the same star quality that had made him and Uncle Hizashi so famous. He wasn't afraid to capitalize on it, either.

Underneath the veneer of a charming mainstream singer, though, Neji was curt and taciturn to the point of being almost impolite. He didn't bear fools lightly, and as he considered almost everyone to be a fool, he lived in a constant state of frustration with an irrational world.

Or so it seemed. Hinata couldn't actually tell. The Hyuuga family, who had always been gifted with some kind of psychic power, kept mental shields up around each other to avoid learning things they shouldn't know. Neji was one of the strongest in family history, and his barriers were nearly impossible to break through. Nobody even tried anymore.

She had last seen him at a family gathering three years ago. It was usually held at Hiashi Hyuuga's home in Hollywood, but that had been the year her parents got divorced, so it had taken place instead at a distant cousin's in Toronto. Neji had been talking with Hanabi when she arrived. They had barely spoken all night, other than a few greeting words. They weren't very close.

Even so, Neji had a sense of duty towards the Hyuuga family that outweighed anything she felt. If he was nearby, it was only appropriate for him to visit. Anything else would be rude.

The doorbell rang. Hinata pulled on her quilted jacket and ran to open the door, remembering too late that she hadn't brushed her still-wet hair.

There was Neji; his hair was pulled back under his shirt and he was wearing a hat and sunglasses, but his mouth was still a mockingly perfect line that gave nothing away. "Good morning," he said. Then, "were you in the shower?"

Hinata nodded and thumbed through her purse for a comb. "Sorry... I-I thought you'd take longer to get here. Aren't you staying outside town?"

"The hotels on the freeway are tiny," Neji replied with a shake of his head. "They didn't have room for the concert crew. I'm staying at the Fairview downtown. Room service is better there, anyway." He snorted. "Although the maids have sex with their boyfriends in the vacant rooms. Residue all over the place."

"Ah," asked Hinata, turning red. "I, uh, really d-didn't want to know that." Smoothing her bangs out across her forehead, she stuffed the comb back in her purse and slung it over one shoulder. "...I'm ready now."

As they walked down the street, talking about who in the family was doing what, Hinata noticed several people watching them curiously. Mainly they were her neighbors wondering who she was going for breakfast with. Hinata was quiet and tried to stay out of their way most of the time. Now a few gossips in the area had begun to spy on her when she went out in company. She didn't mind one way or another what they thought.

"How's Hanabi?" she asked, thinking of her sister and her efforts at goth/punk music. "Does she have a record deal yet?"

Neji raised his eyebrow so high that she could see it above his sunglasses. Nobody could look patronizing like he could. "A record deal? They're starting production on the music video for the first single. You haven't talked to her lately, then."

Hinata shook her head. If she and Neji were distant, Hanabi was on another planet entirely. Hanabi was even quieter than her, wore ripped black lace and antique hats, and wrote songs about eating the small intestines of people she didn't like. "She... called me on my birthday last year. Um, what's the first single?"

"'Down the Road.' As in, not across the street." Neji made a lengthwise slashing motion on his coat sleeve. "She wrote it when someone at her school tried to kill himself."

Wincing, Hinata made a mental note not to by the CD.

The residential district gave way to a collection of small shops halfway down Shadow Clone. Known as Hidden Cafe Village to those who lived nearby, nearly a third of the shops in it served coffee and various forms of food. Hinata's personal favourite was the Dirty Spoon Cafe and Bakery.

"This is a nice street," Neji commented while they walked. "I thought you were living in a bad area."

Hinata shrugged her shoulders. "Well, it's not that great after dark," she admitted. "But, um, during the day, everyone's outside, so it's really comfortable..."

As they passed Tim Hortons, which was the only large food chain with a store in the neighborhood, she stopped and looked in the window to see if Shikamaru or Chouji were working today. Instead, she saw her boss having donuts with a vaguely familiar man.

"What is it?"

The stranger turned around for a moment, and Hinata recognized Lee's martial arts teacher. Gai Maito was fairly hard not to recognize. She wasn't sure if he was actually related to Lee, but they looked it; they had the same shiny shellacked black hair, the same bizarre taste in clothing, and the same cheerful corny disposition. Gai was a known philanthropist and apparently slept with a stuffed turtle. His personality was completely different from Kakashi's in every way.

Hinata wondered what they were doing together, reached delicately into Gai's mind, and found out all she needed to know.

"Just some friends," she answered, turning slightly red as she turned away from the window. "It's nothing. Let's go."

Neji stopped for a moment, but followed her down the street to the Dirty Spoon. "So," he started as they entered the cafe, "have you talked to anyone in the family recently, or are you trying to keep out of sight as usual?"

Taking a seat by the counter, Hinata bit her lip to avoid an answer she would regret. "I'm... just, um, sort of busy... I don't r-really have the time to phone home..."

"You know something?" Neji took a seat across from her, lowered his sunglasses, and stared piercingly at her for several seconds. She felt the uncomfortable sensation of her mental barriers being probed for weaknesses.

Eventually, Neji's mind retreated. "What?" she asked.

"That's the first time you've stuttered all day." He unwrapped his knife and fork from the napkin. "Where's the menu?"

By the time Neji offered her concert tickets, near the end of the meal, she ended up taking them just because he thought she would refuse. It gave her satisfaction that she wasn't read quite so easily. Of course she would go. Concerts and large crowds were difficult for Hinata, but she could block out the alien minds enough to hear him sing. She really couldn't resist that chance.

Neji's voice wasn't fake. The songs and the sentiment behind them were canned maudlin pop at its very basest, but his singing was amazing. Hinata was never sure if it was a side of himself he didn't show to her, or if he just had such talent he could manipulate even people who knew him into thinking he cared.

That was what kept her thinking about Neji Hyuuga - that uncertainty. When she listened to him sing, she was tricked into believing in something other than a callous and disdainful cousin. And, sadly enough, she enjoyed it.

That afternoon, she returned Maid in Manhattan to the Exotic Pet Store and Video Rental.

Naruto was squatting in the corner, spooning mealworms into a hedgehog cage. He didn't notice her until she went to the counter and hesitantly tapped the service bell. Then he turned around, wiping his hands off on his jeans, and straightened up. "Hi!"

"Hi..." she replied self-consciously, turning the video case over in her hand. "How's it g-going?"

One of the animals growled a little. Naruto grinned sheepishly. "Can't complain. Hold on a sec, okay? I gotta feed the rest of the pets."

Hinata watched as he moved from cage to tank to cage again, admiring the curve of his spine and the muscles mostly hidden under his shirt. Most girls in town wouldn't think of Naruto as attractive. She found that crazy but understandable; after all, most of them liked Sasuke, who was clean and sharp and cold as the grave. Naruto Uzumaki was completely alive. Maybe not everyone found that attractive, but she certainly did.

"So, um, have you..." He turned around. Hinata very quickly averted her eyes to the movie posters on the front of the display window. "...do you have tickets to the Neji Hyuuga c-concert?" she asked finally, searching for a line of conversation.

Naruto shook his head. "It sounds fun, but I can't really afford it. Besides, it's not my thing. Do you?"

Beating down her shy nature long enough to take an opportunity when she saw it, Hinata reached into her purse and pulled out her tickets. "I got them from a relative," she replied with a nervous little laugh. "I wan't a-all that interested in going, but... if you'd like to go...?"

"Yeah, sure!" Naruto grinned. "It's not like my calendar's full or anything. That'd be fun. Are you sure you don't want to give one to someone else, though? ...I mean, not that I don't want to go with you, but don't you have a boyfriend?"

Hinata blushed and shook her head, feeling extremely stupid for asking. "No," she squeaked, not wanting to sound desperate, "but it's fine if you don't want to go, I'll find s-someone else..."

Naruto shook his head too, looking ashamed for saying anything. "No! That's not it! I'd love to go! I just thought that, y'know, you're really pretty so there'd be a lot of other guys wanting to go with you, but if you want to go with me that would be awesome! I didn't mean to make you think I... I kinda say stupid things sometimes..." He gestured helplessly.

After several more minutes of making fools of themselves with explanations and constant backtracking, they finally agreed to go together. Hinata only hoped that the concert - she knew that if she thought about it as a date she would lose her nerve at once - would go better.

"So... you came to bring back that movie, right?" asks Naruto, heading for the counter. "Um... Maid in Manhattan? The predictable one?"

As soon as Hinata put the video on the counter, she found herself presented with a choice.

Up until this point, she assumed that she would call the police and let them handle the stranger from last night. That was the smart thing to do. The dumb thing would be to keep her word, which had been made in a state of shock to someone who was obviously deranged. Hinata didn't usually do dumb things.

"Actually," she said, with a nervous little smile and a ring of ice around her throat, "I was, um, watching it again with a friend last night and w-we got halfway through before the tape went bad. Do you h-have any other copies...?"

"Sure! Anything else?"

"...Well... hold on a moment..."

He came in that night at, presumably, the time he'd been there the night before while she was at Aunt Kurenai's. This time Hinata was a little bit more prepared.

"Come in," she said, with a nervous, cheerful normalcy. "Would... you like something to drink? I think there's s-some pop in the fridge."

Without responding, her 'guest' turned towards the apartment kitchenette and stepped forward. The sand on the floor at his feet traveled with him. Hoping that the surreality of the situation would keep her from showing too much fear, Hinata followed after him.

The strange boy took a bottle of Pepsi from the fridge and twisted the cap off, drinking deeply as fizz ran down his chin and neck. Then, still drinking, he stalked into the living room and seated himself on the couch opposite the TV. "I want to know how it ends."

"Of c-course," replied Hinata, grabbing the remote control. The tape was already in her VCR. She pressed fast forward and settled onto the floor cross-legged. "...S-so... um, if you... don't mind me asking... what should I call you? Do you have a name...?"

The question seemed to throw him off a little. "Yes," he rasped, watching rapt as the first half of the movie flew across the TV screen.

"T-then, do you have... some kind of family...?"

His eyes narrowed. "No."

Hinata wasn't quite sure what she was doing. She didn't have any delusions that she had the ability to reform a wandering psychopath. She was a journalist, not a social worker. Then again, she had been acting on impulse ever since she chose not to call the cops, so this wasn't so strange after all.

If she could look into his mind...

Instantly, she discarded the idea. There was no 'if' about it. Sasuke's mind was bad, but this would be a thousand times worse. There was no way she could be brave enough to do it.

They watched the rest of the movie in silence. When the credits began to roll, Hinata turned around to face him. "So, uh... w-what did you think of the ending?"

The look of confusion that had been on his face when she asked about his name returned. "It didn't make any sense," he responded, sounding frustrated and almost a little angry. "I don't understand. Why did they..." His voice trailed off, and he rose from the couch. "You kept your word. I'm going to leave."

"You know, we d-didn't have all that much left of the movie," commented Hinata carefully. "I got out another one, too. It's really good. I still have s-some time tonight, if, um, you'd like to see the first half...?"

The stranger sat back down. "I want to see it."

Hinata smiled and switched Maid in Manhattan with Dirty Dancing in the VCR.

She was woken up at six thirty the next morning when the phone rang. She could have tried to ignore it, but it wouldn't have worked, so she stumbled into the hallway and picked it up grudgingly.

"Hinata?" Sakura sounded strained, as though she was trying not to cry. "I... can I talk to you? Something's happened... I'll pick you up if you say yes, I've got Lee's car, you know how Ino would act if I called her and I can't handle it right now, I'm... oh..."

Taking a deep breath, Hinata was hit with a sudden jolt of adrenaline. "Of... of course I'll come," she said, trying carefully not to stutter. "What's happened...?"

"It's... it's Lee..." The tears were not to be kept in, and for a brief few moments Sakura stopped talking and just sobbed into the phone. "He was in Henderson park last night, and he was attacked... and now he's in the hospital... and he hasn't woken up... and he's all covered in sand..."

TO BE CONTINUED 


	4. The Truth, After the Concert

Disc: Still not mine.  
AN: Merry Christmas, everyone! I bet you thought this fic was dead, didn't you? Don't worry: even if I never write another chapter, I felt obligated to finish the one I had started writing. Due to me pretty much losing interest in Naruto, this fic has been on hiatus. And on hiatus it will continue to be. Don't expect any new chapters for a long time. But at the same time, I hate to leave things unfinished, and I'll try to come back to this fic someday. In the meantime, I hope this new chapter meets all your expectations!

STRANGER THAN FICTION CHAPTER 4:

Sakura came to pick Hinata up at about nine, by which time she had stopped crying. Her eyes were red and her eyeliner was a little runny, but overall she had composed herself very well for someone whose boyfriend was unconcious and possibly dying in the hospital.

"Oh, Hinata," she said, as though surprised that Hinata was at home to answer the door, "thank you for coming with me. I really appreciate this."

Hinata shook her head and grabbed her jacket. "It's not a problem."

As they drove to the hospital, Sakura talked in an almost frantic stream of information. "His leg is broken, but that's not it... When they found him, there was sand all over his eyes, in his nose, his mouth, everywhere. If it's just clumped in his throat, they can remove it, but the doctors said it may have gotten into his lungs... They talked about this disease you get when you're exposed to too much sand, but it's supposed to build up over years... I don't think they've ever seen anything this bad before."

"I'm sorry," said Hinata. She didn't know what else to say. Sakura's anguish would have been obvious even without her power, but as it was, the air seemed ancient with sadness.

Keeping her eyes locked on the road, Sakura very carefully changed lanes and passed several other cars. She looked like she was struggling to keep from crying again. "He could die," she said. "If the sand got into his lungs. They could just give up, like that. Even if he doesn't die, he'll be sick for the rest of his life."

"Have they done the x-rays?" asked Hinata gently.

Sakura nodded. "They said they'll get the results back soon."

"Well, t-that's good, isn't it? ...So we'll know."

"I feel awful," said Sakura quietly. "I never thought something like this could happen. I always treated him so badly, but I really... what if he thinks that I don't...? What if he... if he never... knows that I..."

Hinata covered Sakura's hand on the steering wheel gently with her own hand. "I'm sure he knows," she said. "You can't worry about that. He knows."

When they got to the hospital, Sakura practically jumped out of the car, forgetting to turn off the lights. Her high heels clicked sharply on the pavement as she power-walked to the front entranceway. Hinata locked the car doors and followed her.

"I'm looking for, uh, Rock Lee..." said Sakura nervously to the desk clerk once they were inside. "I'm his girlfriend. She's his, his cousin."

The lie was more obvious than usual for Sakura, but it seemed to pass. The man typed a name into the computer and waited a moment for the results. "Rock Lee? Okay, you can see him right now. He's in Room 312, in the Intensive Care Unit. Just go up the elevator to your left. "

"That's a good sign," said Hinata quietly as they entered the elevator. "That he's, um... he's taking visitors."

Sakura nodded. "I hope so."

Rock Lee's room was small and somewhat dark. A respirator sat beside his bed, puffing in and out in a series of mechanical breaths. Sakura flung the curtains open and sat down anxiously at Lee's side. "Is there a chart?"

Hinata took a look at Lee. He looked hurt, but not dying, and there were no signs of damage in his mind. She wished she could look into his lungs the same way. "Yes," she said, looking at the foot of the bed, "but I don't know how to read it. I'll, um, go get a nurse, alright?"

"Okay."

When she came back, Sakura had taken Lee's hand and was stroking it slowly. She stopped as Hinata entered the room.

"The x-rays came back," Hinata said, smiling in what she hoped would be a reassuring way.

"And?"

"The nurse said the doctors think the sand in his throat actually blocked a lot of damage to the lungs. He'll, um, he'll wake up in a few hours, and they'll move him to a stable unit."

The transformation that came across Sakura was incredible. In several seconds, her face went from pale with worry to practically glowing with relief. Hinata thought about Sakura as she had known her in high school; she had always been the type to conceal her feelings, hiding behind her good looks, good grades, and moderate popularity. High school Sakura would probably be embarrased to see herself so changed.

"Oh," she said simply, and then repeated herself. "Oh. That's good." Hinata could feel the effort it was taking her not to simply start crying again.

She stayed for a while after that. They made small talk at the hospital cafeteria after their fifteen minutes were up, Sakura anxiously tapping her nails on the table. She left before Lee woke up; there would be no way to shield herself from the feelings accompanying their reunion, and she felt it would be best for them to have some privacy.

xxx

The next few days passed by with little of real interest happening. Hinata went into work, finishing off the Henderson Park story. Shino rigged up an impressive picture of a sand zombie. It reminded her very little of her intruder.

He came to her house only every other night now, but his interest in the romantic comedies she showed him hadn't waned. She showed him Dirty Dancing, You've Got Mail, The Wedding Planner, and others she had never even seen before. He seemed fascinated by them; unable to figure out even the most obvious plot twists, always stunned when the hero and heroine ended up together against all odds. Probably he was a sociopath. She wasn't much saner, either, considering that she hadn't called the police yet.

She didn't see Sakura and Lee, but several phone calls assured her that he was making progress and would actually be able to attend the Neji Hyuuga concert, albeit in a wheelchair. Of course it had been her intruder that had done it in the first place. She should have felt guilty. She didn't.

Finally the day of the concert came. In the mid-afternoon she packed a box of snacks, wore her best casual clothes, and waited patiently at the Greyhound stop for Naruto and the bus to Calgary.

He arrived just as the bus pulled up, carrying a backpack and running so he could make it on time. "Hey!" he said, as they boarded. "Sorry, I thought I had more time. I just had to, y'know, finish up at the store..."

"Oh, n-no, that's... that's fine," said Hinata quietly. She took a seat near the back and moved a little towards the window when he sat down beside her. "I, um, got there a little bit early."

Naruto nodded. "I see."

They sat in silence for a little while as the bus pulled away from the curb. Finally, Naruto coughed and turned to her. "So, uh, you're a journalist, right? Where do you work?"

"I, uh..." Hinata smiled awkwardly, deciding to tell the truth. "I work for the, um, the N-National Observer... You might not have-"

Naruto's mouth dropped open. "For real?" He grinned. "That's so awesome! I buy that thing all the time! I love the stories about that, uh... that caveman thing..."

"Disco Neanderthal," said Hinata. Looking at the expression on Naruto's face, she almost wanted to ask whether he believed the articles, but eventually she realized he was trying to put her at ease. She wasn't used to reading people's faces. "I, um, wrote some of those."

His smile got wider. "That's really cool, Hinata."

Hinata shook her head. "It's really n-not that... well, um, I guess sometimes it's very fun." She turned slightly red. "But I always thought it, um, it m-must also be interesting to work at a pet store."

"Yeah, sometimes we get some pretty weird customers," replied Naruto. "One time this guy came in and wanted to buy two hamsters so he could make them fight to the death and post it online! Of course we couldn't let him buy them. You have to wonder who would do a thing like that."

The bus continued down the highway. Naruto and Hinata talked almost all the way to Calgary, Naruto doing most of the talking, Hinata basking in the feeling of going somewhere with Naruto. Halfway there Hinata pulled out the snacks she had packed.

"These are really good," said Naruto, taking a bite of cookie. "Did you make them?"

"...N-no, I got them from, um, Tim Hortons," replied Hinata. "I n-never really... make my own... I mean, I'm not a very good cook."

Naruto shrugged. "Fair enough, neither am I." He took a look out the window. "Excited about the concert?"

"A little."

"I didn't actually think you'd be the type of person to like this kind of music."

"Well," Hinata looked down, twiddling her thumbs, "it's okay. I m-mean, I, um, like it, but it's not..."

Naruto shook his head. "No, I get it. That's cool." He looked at her for a moment. "Hey, did anybody ever tell you you look a little like Neji Hyuuga?"

"I g-get that sometimes," said Hinata, and turned away to look out the window.

xxx

They got into Calgary just after five, had a quick dinner at a little Chinese place nearby, and then headed over to the hall half an hour early. It was already crowded. Hinata briefly thought she might have seen Ino in the throngs of people, but there was no way of knowing.

"Wow," said Naruto, surveying the vast expanse of seats. "I don't think I've ever been in a room this big before." He laughed. "Guess I don't get out much. So, uh, where're our seats?"

Hinata passed him the tickets. "We're... uh, up there."

Naruto scanned the tickets and looked up the long aisle to the stage, then back again. "Whoa. That's... we're in, like, the third row! That's incredible! Where did you get these tickets?"

"A... um. A friend gave them to me."

"Nice friend."

They made their way up to their seats and sat down, Hinata storing her backpack anxiously underneath her seat. For a while they tried to talk, but it was hard for them to hear each other over the noise of the crowd, and the opening act started soon after they arrived.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said a dark haired girl with a guitar, who looked like she would be more comfortable at a martial arts tournament than on a stage, "my name is Tenten, and I'm here to get you guys warmed up for the one and only Neji Hyuuga! So let's get started!"

Immediately after her self-introduction she launched into a spirited pop number. Hinata had never heard of her, but she was good; her voice wasn't particularly suited for singing, but she played guitar well, and her enthusiasm was contaigious. Soon the audience was clapping along with her. Several people even started dancing in the aisles.

After a short set, Tenten lowered her guitar. "Thanks, guys," she said cheerfully. "You've been great. Before I go, I'd just like to give a shoutout to a friend of mine." She pointed into the front row. "Lee! Rock Lee! Nice wheels, man! Jeet Kune Do forever!"

A pair of arms that Hinata assumed were Lee's waved enthusiastically in the air. Tenten gave one final bow and left the stage.

The crowd gave her one final round of screams. "Wow, she was good!" yelled Naruto through the applause, grinning. "Maybe this concert isn't gonna be so bad after all!"

Hinata couldn't help but laugh. "Don't speak too soon," she said, pointing to the stage, "here comes the main act!"

Then the hall went black.

When the lights came back on, Neji Hyuuga was standing at the front of the stage, microphone in hand. He was wearing a dark green dress shirt and black jeans, and his hair was tied back over his shoulder. As usual, his stage makeup was subtle but impressive, drawn to highlight the piercing blue of his contacts. His band was behind him in the shadows of the stage. Clearly they weren't important enough to share the limelight.

The entire audience clapped and yelled enthusiastically for him: 'we love you, Neji!' screamed several girls in the front row. Naruto said something to her, but Hinata had no idea what. She was already absorbed in the scene.

"Hi," said Neji. "I'm Neji Hyuuga. Thanks for coming to my show."

And with that, he started to sing.

He did all the hits: Somebody Else's Girl, Cheating, The Smile, Fields of Flowers. He even covered Coldplay. He barely spoke in between songs, only stopped to smile beautifically as waves of applause rolled over him. While he sang his face was a mask of concentration, but his voice was incredible, beautiful and raw-sounding even through the distortion of the mike.

Hinata kept her mental shields up at first, but the strain of blocking so many people was keeping her from really appreciating the concert. Besides, the pulse of emotions she could feel through the shield wasn't unpleasant. Gradually, with a great deal of care, she lowered her guard.

She had expected to feel claustrophobic, overwhelmed. Instead she was enveloped in the combined excitement and pleasure of the entire crowd. She was experiencing the euphoria of everyone in the building, the girls in the front row, Rock Lee in his wheelchair, waving his arms, Sakura beside him, composed but filled with gladness. Naruto's feelings pulsed beside her like sunlight. Neji's voice was amplified a thousand times over in her mind by the reactions of the listeners. It was like being high. She could feel everything.

"You're a great crowd," said Neji, "I'm so glad to be here," and the responding surge of joy from the people around her rose up into her throat, and she screamed at the top of her lungs.

If what Neji felt on stage was anything like this... no wonder he could sing like that.

xxx

After the show Hinata was exhausted; her legs shook as they walked down the street to the bus station. Her mind was still sensitive from the experience. She reminded herself not to try that again for a while. In fact, it might be better if she had a couple days of peace and quiet, to get her mind back in good working order.

"Are you alright?" asked Naruto, looking worried.

Hinata nodded. "I'm fine," she said quietly. "Just... just t-tired. Look!" She pointed down the street at the powerful headlights of the Greyhound that would take them home.

"Okay," said Naruto, but he helped her up onto the bus anyway.

The ride back home was quiet at first. Naruto commented several times on the concert, which he had apparently enjoyed quite a lot, and Hinata said yes, she'd liked it too, and continued staring out the window. She was trying to put the proper words together. This was her chance.

"I, um," she said, finally, taking a deep breath, "I h-had a really good time tonight. Um. With you. And, uh, m-maybe we could get together, another time, and do something..."

As soon as she felt Naruto stiffen slightly in the seat beside her, she knew the answer. "Sorry," he says. And he really was sorry, but that didn't make it hurt any less. "I'm sorry, Hinata. I like you, but not like that. I can't... I can't date you. I just can't."

She couldn't help it. Hinata reached in almost without thinking, too depressed to remember that it was the wrong thing to do, trying to find out why she had been rejected.

Naruto's mind was two-tiered. His antischitzophrenics covered the surface like the clear water of a pond, giving his thoughts and feelings a regularity similar to other people's. Below that, like the tangles of weeds at the bottom of the same pond, lay a mind sometimes deceptively normal, sometimes filled with fear and confusion, difficult to endure.

Buried deep inside was a little knot of pain, and it was there that she found what she was looking for.

"It's... it's Sasuke, isn't it."

Naruto stared at her, shocked, and a splash of paranoia rose to the top of his head. Hinata instantly felt horrible. She could only wait as his rational mind managed to convince himself that he was being stupid, that Hinata was just unusually perceptive, or that maybe he was more obvious than he had thought. She promised herself that after tonight she would never read Naruto again.

"Yeah," he said.

"...Why?"

Naruto sighed. "This is gonna sound really stupid, but, uh, you remember in 9th Grade when we had that snowstorm?"

Leafhyde got a lot of storms, but that year they had been extrodinarily harsh; for a period of almost a month there had been nearly six feet of snow covering the town. Several senior citizens had almost starved to death without groceries. Hinata remembered it. She had still been living with Asuma and Kurenai at the time, and so things had been fine, but for Naruto, living alone...

"You g-got snowed in?"

"Yeah. And then I ran out of meds."

"Oh."

Naruto laughed awkwardly, painfully. "I, uh, I had just had my psychotic break earlier in the year, so... I guess you can imagine it wasn't much fun. I was freaking out. I was running out of food, and I couldn't think straight enough to find a way out of the house. I thought I was going to die. And then Sasuke came over."

"He what?" asked Hinata, surprised despite herself.

"He brought me some medication. I don't know how he got it. And some groceries and stuff. He had to shovel out my doorway to get in, but he did. And then he stayed with me for a couple days, until I got back to normal... even though, like half the time I thought he was trying to kill me. And I asked him why he would do all that, and he looked at me and he was like 'how the fuck should I know?' and I've liked him since then. But that's about it."

Hinata didn't want to know any more. But she couldn't stop looking. This was an emotion that had festered in Naruto's heart for a long time, mixed together with all the other feelings of jealousy and resentment towards Sasuke, but never being overcome by them.

"Have you... ever s-said...?"

Naruto shook his head. "No. Not really. There was... at Ino's grad party, I, uh..."

'Gave him a blowjob,' Hinata read automatically off the top of his mind. She shielded herself immediately, but the damage was done.

"I..." she started.

"But we were really drunk," finished Naruto, staring at the floor of the bus. "I don't think he remembers anything."

"I'm sorry," said Hinata.

"No, I'm sorry, too. I kinda talk too much, huh? It's not important." And for him it wasn't important, not really. He had experience a lot of hardship in his life: growing up alone, with a mental illness, shunned by his peers. This was just one more burden to bear. Naruto yawned, and then grinned. "I'm beat. I think I'm gonna take a nap. Wake me up when we get back to Leafhyde, 'kay?"

He turned away from her, and in minutes he was snoring softly. He stayed asleep for the rest of the ride. Hinata stared out the window into the darkness, hands folded on her lap, feeling too low to even cry.

xxx

TO BE CONTINUED 


End file.
